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Mounting his second run for mayor,
Rob Ford
returned Wednesday to the strategy that made him an adept and elusive debater during his first: stick doggedly to the dollars-and-cents matters in his wheelhouse, shrug off questions about character, sometimes make false claims.

Ford was the focus of the first 2014 debate featuring the five major candidates for the mayoralty — a free-wheeling, oft-chaotic City TV affair in which all five at times resorted to shouting to make themselves heard. The incumbent held his own, pivoting quickly to practised counter-attacks.

None of Ford’s challengers spoke directly about his crack cocaine scandal. They did confront him obliquely. Olivia Chow called him an “international embarrassment.” John Tory said he has “let the taxpayers down in this city very badly.”

Ford brushed aside the criticism. Boasting of his policy accomplishments, he said he has done what he told voters he would do. Talk of his scandals, he said, is “rewind, rewind, rewind.”

“People know my track record,” he continued. “They know they can go to sleep at night knowing that their tax dollars are being watched.”

The debate was the first in a seven-month stretch that could involve 100 more, most of them untelevised community forums. It offered an early opportunity for the candidates to introduce themselves to voters — and to attempt to tar their rivals.

Right-leaning Tory challenged left-leaning Chow on her unwillingness to outsource garbage collection east of Yonge St., asking her to “fess up” that she is an “NDP candidate.” Karen Stintz, a right-leaning candidate who insists Toronto can build the $7-plus-billion downtown relief subway line without a tax hike, asked Tory if he supports transit taxes.

Tory spoke openly of the necessity of such taxes while chair of advocacy group CivicAction, but he dodged, promising a “comprehensive” subway funding plan “sooner than later.” He quickly mounted an offensive against Stintz for her “very hasty” plan to sell a majority stake in Toronto Hydro, which he said he would keep in public hands.

Tory, the former Progressive Conservative leader, again depicted himself as a thoughtful non-ideologue who would cut waste and keep taxes low; he said Ford makes decisions without regard for important facts. Stintz, a councillor, again depicted herself as both fiscally prudent and a regular woman who would bring “kitchen-table common sense” to government.

Rob Ford and his policies were the focus at Wednesday's Toronto mayoral debate.(CP)

And Chow, conveying empathy, promised “change.” The former Trinity-Spadina MP used her one allotted question to ask Ford what he would say to a mother who is forced to stand in the cold waiting for a bus because of service cuts.

The debate was heated from the first segment, about transit, during which the three candidates who support the council-approved three-stop Scarborough subway extension to the Bloor-Danforth line sparred with Chow and right-leaning David Soknacki, who prefer the cheaper seven-stop light rail extension that was originally planned.

Soknacki, a former councillor and budget chief, repeatedly accused Ford of imposing “the largest tax increase in the city’s history,” the 30-year, $910-million property tax and development charge hike needed to cover the extra cost of a subway over an LRT line. Ford said the subway would cost a mere $5 per household, which is not true; the project will require an extra $40 per year for about 30 years beginning in 2016.

Ford alone made several factually inaccurate statements. He claimed incorrectly that there were no
cuts to TTC bus service
, that his tax increases have been lower than those of any other North American city (Windsor and others are lower), that there has not been a union strike during his tenure (there was a
library workers’ strike
), and that he has “created 57,000 jobs” (the increase during his tenure is
now only about 6,000
).

Chow demanded that he stop his “crazy lying.” She called his claim of having saved $1 billion a “billion-dollar lie”; Ford said his numbers come directly from the city’s top bureaucrat, who
says
only that “at least half” of the $1 billion are “true” savings to the city.

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Chow is the leader in most polls. She faced attacks from all sides for her party affiliation, which her rivals used as a pejorative in an attempt to convince voters that she is a left-wing partisan.

Ford said she would lead a high-tax “NDP government,” Stintz that voters rejected the “NDP budget practices” of Ford predecessor David Miller. Chow responded that tax increases averaged 1.8 per cent when she sat on the budget committee of right-leaning former mayor Mel Lastman.

The debate drew unusually strong interest for a forum far from election day, Oct. 27. Even U.S. late-night host Jimmy Kimmel tuned in — and offered qualified praise for the man he mocks mercilessly on his show.

“Oh my goodness, @TOMayorFord is JFK compared to some of these candidates,” Kimmel wrote on Twitter.

All of the candidates except for Chow will participate Thursday in a Ryerson University forum hosted by Ralph Lean, the Conservative fundraiser who is opposed to her.

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